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Through human history, weather has altered the march of events and caused some mighty cataclysms. Since Columbus did not know where he was going or where he had arrived when he got there, the winds truly deserve nearly as much credit as he for the discovery of America. Ugly west winds helped turn the 1588 Spanish Armada away from England in a limping panic. Napoleon was done in twice by weather: once by the snow and cold that forced his fearful retreats from Moscow, later by the rain that bedevilled him at Waterloo and caused Victor Hugo to write:“A few drops of water... and unseasonable cloud crossing the sky, sufficed for the overthrow of a world.” In 1944 the Allied invasion of Normandy was made possible by a narrow interval of reasonably good weather between the bad. It was so narrow, in fact, that Supreme Allied Commander Dwight Eisenhower later expressed gratitude to “the gods of war”.
Every year brings fresh reminders of the weather’s power over human life and events in the form of horrifying tornadoes, hurricanes and floods. These leave behind forgettable statistics and unforgettable images of devastated towns and battered humanity that can only humble people in the face of such wrath. Farmers often suffer the most, from the drought to the hailstorms or quick freezes that even today can wipe out whole crops in minutes. Icy assaults serve as reminders of the inescapable vulnerability of life and social wellbeing to the whims of the weather. And history is packed with reminders of far worse. The weather, for example, provoked a major social dislocation in the United States in the 1930’s when it turned much of the South west into the Dust Bowl.
No wonder, then, that man’s great dream has been some day to control the weather. The first step toward control, of course, is knowledge, and scientists have been hard at work for years trying to keep track of the weather. The United States and other nations have created an international apparatus that maintains some 100,000 stations to check the weather round the clock in every sector of the globe and, with satellites, in a good deal of the more than 16 billion cubic kilometers of the atmosphere. With computers on tap and electronic eyes in the sky, modern man has thus come far in dealing with the weather. Yet man’s predicament today is not too far removed from that of his remote ancestors. For all the advances of scientific forecasting, in spite of the thousands of daily bulletins and advisories that get flashed about, the weather is still ultimately often changing and unpredictable. Man’s dream of controlling it is still just that — a dream.
16. The writer is of the opinion that Columbus
［A］ owed much to the west winds for his discovery.
［B］ took credit for the discovery from someone else.
［C］ was unaware that he had discovered the New World.
［D］ could hardly deserve to be the discoverer of America.
17. The quote from Victor Hugo indicates that Napoleon
［A］ underrated the effect of the weather change.
［B］ was the greatest victim of the untimely rain.
［C］ failed to foresee the unexpected weather.
［D］ encountered a crushing blow at Waterloo.
18. What helped the allies to carry out a successful invasion of Normandy?
［A］ It was a brief spell of fairly good weather.
［B］ It was a short period of terrible weather.
［C］ It was calm weather followed by a storm.
［D］ It was the excellent weather condition.
19. According to the author, it is UNTRUE about weather control that
［A］ computers and satellites are powerful instruments in dealing with weather.
［B］ we are far from being able to control the weather despite modern devices.
［C］ we can bring the weather under control owing to technological advances.
［D］ modern electronic devices have enabled us to predict the weather accurately.
20. We can conclude from the text that
［A］ man is very much at the mercy of weather.
［B］ man is doomed to be destroyed by weather.
［C］ weather is sure to be tamed by human beings.
［D］ it’s only a matter of time to conquer weather.
